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Seven Things I Love About the Country

1. No drive-by traffic. If I want to wait a little while before I remove the fresh pile of horse manure from our yard or the driveway, it’s just fine. In fact, eventually the manure will just dry up and blow away.

Don’t ask me how I know this.

2. The quiet.

If I step outside in the evening, there are no ambient sounds of civilization. No car engines, no sirens, no honking. Just cows, the occasional coyote, and the wind blowing through the tallgrass.

And my tinnitus.

3. The beautiful, primal scent of horses.

If my sixteen-year-old self could only read what I just wrote, she would totally freak out.

4. The openness. The country is the antidote for Claustrophobia.

The same can not be said for Ophidiophobia, Arachnophobia, Lilapsophobia, or Equinophobia.

5. You can run around the yard in your underwear.

This would be more relevant if I actually enjoyed walking around the yard in my underwear. But at least I know that if I ever want to, I can. Not that I ever will, because I am very shy about my body. But just knowing the option is there makes me feel more free and unencumbered.

I’m glad we had this talk.

6. No sense of time.

There are places in the country—those places without telephone poles or roads or fences—where a person can gaze upon the horizon and see nothing that indicates what decade, century, or millennium it is.

Then the person goes inside, turns on Real Housewives, and it becomes instantly clear.

7. A more amplified weather experience. In the country you see, hear, and feel extreme weather much more acutely.